Self-interest in the context of "Reciprocity (social psychology)"

Pulcinella (Italian: [pultʃiˈnɛlla]; Neapolitan: Pulecenella) is a classical character that originated in commedia dell'arte of the 17th century and became a stock character in Neapolitan puppetry. Pulcinella's versatility in status and attitude have helped maintain the character's popularity in various forms since his introduction to commedia dell'arte by Silvio Fiorillo [it] in 1620.

His visual appearance includes a humpback, a crooked nose, gangly legs, a potbelly, large cheeks, and a gigantic mouth. These traits were inherited from two stock characters of the Atellan Farce. He typically wears a pointed hat (conical hat). When depicted as a member of the upper class, Pulcinella is a cunning thief and schemer. When depicted as a member of the servant class, Pulcinella is a perverted bumpkin. In either case, he is a social climber, striving to rise above his station in life. He is an opportunist who always sides with the winner in any situation and who fears no consequences. His main motivations are self-interest and self-preservation, yet Pulcinella tends to rescue other characters from trouble. He is said to be every character's savior, despite acting as a rebel and a delinquent.

Thucydides (/θjuːˈsɪdɪˌdiːz/ thew-SID-ih-deez; Ancient Greek: Θουκυδίδης, romanized: Thoukudídēs [tʰuːkydǐdɛːs]; c. 460 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history" by those who accept his claims to have applied strict standards of impartiality and evidence-gathering and analysis of cause and effect, without reference to intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.

Thucydides has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest. His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide. The Melian dialogue is regarded as a seminal text of international relations theory, while his version of Pericles's Funeral Oration is widely studied by political theorists, historians, and students of the classics. More generally, Thucydides developed an understanding of human nature to explain behavior in such crises as plagues, massacres, and wars.

Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner through the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. Common-law systems codify the act of violating a law while under coercion as a duress crime.

Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced. The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party.

Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of circumstances — with little regard for principles or with what the consequences are for others. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individual humans and living organisms, groups, organizations, styles, behaviors and trends.

Opportunism or "opportunistic behaviour" is an important concept in such fields of study as biology, transaction cost economics, game theory, ethics, psychology, sociology and politics.

Moral reasoning is the study of how people think about right and wrong and how they acquire and apply moral rules. It is a subdiscipline of moral psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy, and is the foundation of descriptive ethics.

An influential psychological theory of moral reasoning was proposed by Lawrence Kohlberg of the University of Chicago, who expanded Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Lawrence described three levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional (governed by self-interest), conventional (motivated to maintain social order, rules and laws), and post-conventional (motivated by universal ethical principles and shared ideals including the social contract).

Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or ego, as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normative forms. That is, they may be interested in either describing that people do act in self-interest or prescribing that they should. Other definitions of egoism may instead emphasise action according to one's will rather than one's self-interest, and furthermore posit that this is a truer sense of egoism.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia states of egoism that it "incorporates in itself certain basic truths: it is natural for man to love himself; he should moreover do so, since each one is ultimately responsible for himself; pleasure, the development of one's potentialities, and the acquisition of power are normally desirable." The moral censure of self-interest is a common subject of critique in egoist philosophy, with such judgments being examined as means of control and the result of power relations. Egoism may also reject the idea that insight into one's internal motivation can arrive extrinsically, such as from psychology or sociology, though, for example, this is not present in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In the field of personality psychology, Machiavellianism (sometimes abbreviated as MACH) is the name of a personality trait construct characterized by manipulativeness, indifference to morality, lack of empathy, and a calculated focus on self-interest. Psychologists Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis created the construct and named it after Niccolò Machiavelli, as they devised a set of truncated and edited statements similar to his writing tone to study variations in human behaviors. Apart from this, the construct has no relation to the historical figure outside of bearing his name. Their Mach IV test, a 20-question, Likert-scale personality survey, became the standard self-assessment tool and scale of the Machiavellianism construct. Those who score high on the scale (High Machs) are more likely to have a high level of deceitfulness, exploitativeness and a cold, unemotional temperament.

It is one of the dark triad traits, along with the subclinical versions of narcissism and psychopathy.

In economics, and in other social sciences, preference refers to an order by which an agent, while in search of an "optimal choice", ranks alternatives based on their respective utility. Preferences are evaluations that concern matters of value, in relation to practical reasoning. Individual preferences are determined by taste, need, ..., as opposed to price, availability or personal income. Classical economics assumes that people act in their best (rational) interest. In this context, rationality would dictate that, when given a choice, an individual will select an option that maximizes their self-interest. But preferences are not always transitive, both because real humans are far from always being rational and because in some situations preferences can form cycles, in which case there exists no well-defined optimal choice. An example of this is Efron dice.

The concept of preference plays a key role in many disciplines, including moral philosophy and decision theory. The logical properties that preferences possess also have major effects on rational choice theory, which in turn affects all modern economic topics.